


Waiting for Some Author Whose Name is Never Revealed

by misura



Category: Black Books
Genre: Gen, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-26 02:39:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12546972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: Bernard heroically handles the shop being invaded by vermin (also known as children).





	Waiting for Some Author Whose Name is Never Revealed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [abbichicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abbichicken/gifts).



Bernard had settled down in the philosophy section, which over the years had also gotten some botany and interior decorating mixed in, making it practically a little bit of home at home.

It took Manny approximately thirty-five minutes and sixteen seconds to track him down, which was appalling. With all the noise and the nastiness going on, Bernard should have been safe for at least an hour, if not more.

"They're - " he said, because the only way to beat a good defense was by launching a better offense.

"Yes!" Manny said.

"And I - "

"Uh-huh."

"And you - "

"Absolutely," Manny said. "So how about we - ?"

"What?"

"You know," said Manny.

"How should I? You haven't said anything! What am I, a mind-reader? Speak up, man! Oh, and bring me another bottle of wine, will you? I need it to blot out the hallucinations."

Reading had helped, for a while - especially the drinking he'd done during, but a bottle only held so much wine, and now he needed a new book because this one was empty.

"Ah," Manny said. "Right. The hallucinations. Gone around the bend a bit, have we? Seeing things? Hearing voices? That type of stuff?"

"Voices! Yes! Lots and lots of voices! And they yammer and yell and just go on and on and on. For a very long time. And there's giggling. I can't stand giggling. It makes me - well, it makes me feel very bad." It made him want to _join in_ , which was bad. Nothing good had ever come of people wanting to _join in_ \- just look at the European Union.

"Right," Manny said. Again. "So when you say 'hallucinations', what you really mean are - " He gestured.

"What does that mean?" Bernard imitated the gesture, adding a nice little twist to it. A little flourish, to emphasize that around here, his word was law, and the law - the law was his word. "What does that mean? Have you gone deaf? If you have, you're fired."

"The good news is, they're not hallucinations. They're real," said Manny. "If you mean what I think you mean, if you know what I mean, and I think you do."

"You think, you think - didn't we talk about this? Look, I even wrote it down for you." Bernard pointed at the little blackboard. "Look. Look at what it says right there."

Manny squinted. Maybe he was going blind _and_ deaf. "Oh right. Better clean that up straight away, yeah? Got some young eyes around the shop today."

"It says 'Don't think, just buy a bloody book and get out'," Bernard said.

"What, me?" Manny asked. "But ... I work here. I'm your favorite employee. Employee of the month three months running. What'd I want to buy a book for, anyway? I can just read what I want right here in the shop, yeah?"

"Read the next line," Bernard said.

" 'Manny, you're fired.' Oh, now that's not nice, is it?"

"And the next one."

" 'P.S. Shut up.' I'll say."

"Next."

" 'P.P.S. Wine me.' Ha! If I do, will you hire me again?"

"I'll think about it," Bernard said, looking around for his next oasis of calm and quiet in a world gone mad. And smelly. And sticky. And loud.

_Oh, won't anybody think of the children?_

 

The case, as it was, was simply this: someone had written a book. Many people wrote books, an activity to which Bernard, as a rule, hadn't the least objection. Live and let live, that was his motto.

But! This someone, for reasons both obscure and indubitably obscene, had aimed their book at the vermin of humanity. The scum. The unwashed, over-nourished masses, who wouldn't recognize Tolstoy if you hit them over the head with it (leatherbound). Who played Pac Man on their mobile phones and thought they were all that, while in fact, they were not all that at all.

(Manny's period of playing had been blessedly brief, cut short by an unfortunate accident that kept befalling his phone. Phones. He'd accepted it with poor grace, even after Bernard had pointed out to him that this was clear proof that a higher power did, in fact, exist and that it was currently in the process of smashing up his third phone. With a hammer. While enjoying a refreshing glass of wine.)

Thus it had begun.

An era of darkness and things that went 'excuse me, sir, I think you just stepped on my legs' in the night, when you came stumbling home from the pub, a little drunk and very tired, and not in any sort of mood, really, to deal with little people in sleeping bags laying siege to your shop because they wanted to be the first to read the latest thrilling adventures of Whatisname and his good friends Dunno and Duncare.

 

"Well, it's nice, isn't it?" Manny said.

He'd put away his wand as a show of ... whatever, but Bernard wasn't fooled. "No, it isn't. And for God's sake, will you put down that broomstick? So you want to compensate for being undersized - who cares? I certainly don't."

"It's - " Manny looked faintly clueless. "You know. For sweeping. I sweep. I'm a sweeper."

Bernard sighed. His head hurt. He blamed it on the silly hats that had accompanied the display case.

Manny had given his to a kid who'd been all snotty and snivelly and disgusting. And walking on crutches. Bernard had tried to trip him up on the way out, but the little bastard had seen him coming.

Kids were like that. Always plotting things behind your back. Scheming and whining and crying.

"What's so nice about this place being overrun by little monsters day after day after day? Don't they have parents? Haven't they ever heard of Amazon dot com? Can't they stay home and watch the telly like normal people?"

"Well, the movie's all right, I guess," Manny said. "It's just ... some of the magic's missing, you know? It's never quite as you imagined it."

"My life," said Bernard. "Your life. Everyone else's life. _Nothing_ ever is quite as you imagined it. And that's sad. That is very sad. In fact, that is so sad, I need another bottle of wine."

"I'll just stay and clean up, shall I? Sweeping. With my broom."

 

The children weren't even the worst. Bernard could have handled the children. They were just like real people, after all, except smaller and scream-y-er. Ish. They all seemed to respond well to Manny, too, like if Manny had been a faerietale princess, the children would all have been small woodland creatures, and nobody would have minded if Bernard killed them, and they would have been delicious.

Killing and eating actual children would just be very unhygienic, though, so Bernard bore with it, telling himself he'd ride it out. Let it go, and all that nonsense.

Then the adults started coming. Some of them were even wearing the silly hats. The first few pretended that they were buying the book for their son or daughter or other unspecified younger relative, but Bernard smelled the lie on them. It was a kind of pepperminty smell, but not peppermint.

They came into his shop and kept buying books and it was all ... madness! Chaos!

(One of them'd even had the audacity to want to buy some Dostoyevsky.)

 

And then, disaster struck.

"She's - " Bernard said. He disapproved of book signings in general, mostly because book signings attracted customers and customers were the enemy. The ones with taste took away his favorite books, and the ones without taste wasted their money on rubbish.

"Nah, let's not do this again," said Manny. "I'm just going to come right out and guess this time. Attractive? Funny? Not what you expected? Your third cousin, twice removed? Secretly a superhero? All of the above?"

"How about none?" Bernard slicked back his hair. When he slicked back his hair, it made his hair look slicked back, and when his hair looked slicked back, _he_ looked slick, and when he looked slick - well, things happened. Good things. Occasionally. Not very often, but sometimes. Once. Maybe.

"I heard she's a lesbian," said Manny.

"Good," Bernard said. "I love women, she loves women - it'll give us something to talk about."

"All right, so I made that up. Have you actually read her book?"

"Of course not. I'll ask her to tell me all about it. Or I'll pretend. Whichever's most convenient."

Manny nodded slowly. They'd only had one silly hat left, so Bernard had generously allowed Manny to wear it, also because its color clashed so nicely with his beard. He'd considered writing to the publisher to ask for more, only he was worried they might actually send them. "Sounds like your usual MO."

"I don't have an MO," Bernard said. "Anyway, you're just jealous because she likes me better."

"She's ... not actually here yet," said Manny. "You've just been looking at her picture."

Bernard knew jealousy when he heard it. It sounded like Manny had, just now. "Oh, very well. Will like me better. There? Happy now, Mr Grammatically Correct?"

"Maybe she'll cancel. Maybe the shop'll get hit by an asteroid. Maybe - "

"What?"

"Nope, sorry, can't beat the asteroid." Manny sighed. "You really haven't read it?"

"Really."

"Really really?"

"Really really."

" _Really_ really really?"

Bernard glared.

Manny coughed. "Sorry. Got carried away for a bit there. Still, exciting day. Lots of customers, I expect."

Bernard shuddered. It wasn't that he disliked customers - or, fine, he did. But everyone going all ga-ga over a book that was just silly was just silly, and not the funny, 'look, it's a clown dressed like a regular person' silly, which had left him traumatized at an impressionable age, as well as mortally afraid of clowns. "You mean children. Lots of _children_." His fingers itched for another cigarette at the thought.

One small sacrifice, and this day might be saved. No chance of a book signing if the shop burnt down. He'd even get money from the insurance - accidents with cigarettes did happen, after all.

"That's better," Manny said. "See? It's not all bad, is it? You just wait, bet you we're going to have a lovely time of it. We'll get some nice takeaway dinner tonight to celebrate a day of great sales, by which I don't mean heating up those cartons from last month that have mushrooms growing on them. I mean fresh, new takeaway that tastes good. With fortune cookies."

Bernard sighed. "I do love fortune cookies."

"There you go."

"Wait, no, I don't. Why would I love fortune cookies? They make no sense! And there's never any fortune in them! Just words! Like books, but much, much shorter. And nonsensical. How does my hair look? Does it need more slicking back? It needs to be more slicked back, doesn't it?"

"Look, if she's going to be put off by you - and let's be honest here, chances are she will, it'll be because you have a rotten personality, no charm and no conversational skills."

Bernard scoffed and slicked back his hair a bit more.


End file.
